Posts Tagged ‘Blush’

Good morning peeps! Welcome to the fourth installment of Oh-My-Blush! series. For those who are new here, Oh-My-Blush! series contains review and swatches of my favorite blush, or whatever left in my stash :). The star of the day is NARS Taos!

NARS Taos

Please pardon the defiled pan of NARS Taos. I depotted mine quite a while ago into Z-Palette, and Taos was the first one I tried so the inexperienced me pricked the knife wrongly and I ended up with this *sobs*. According to NARS, Taos is warm desert rose. It’s true, it’s very warm and has gold micro-shimmer that lends it the warmth. Mind you, the blush is strongly pigmented, so I would suggest to use duo-fiber aka stippling brush to apply this (I personally like using MAC 187 for NARS blushes). NARS Taos is not something you want to put on when you’re in a rush as overapplication might be the big issue here. You don’t want to end up looking like bozo the clown aren’t you?

Left – NARS Douceur, Right – NARS Taos

NARS Taos, slightly different angle

Applied right, it’s a very flattering shade that warms up complexion immediately. Staying power is pretty awesome, it refused to budge even after 8 hours. There’s slight fading once it hits 10-hour mark but it’s still pretty much there. Pretty impressive huh? It may look scarily dark in the pan and the swatches below do tell how crazy pigmented it is, but it’s a shade that would flatter most skintones. I believe this will look great on medium to dark complexion, but fairer ladies definitely can pull this off as well. It’s not overly warm, so cool toned ladies can breathe a relief sigh lol. However, fairer ladies must take precaution on overapplying as it may look too muddy.

NARS Taos – Swatches on arm

On me, NARS Taos is a flattering rose with gold shimmer peeking through. It’s really pretty, I can’t deny it. To me it’s a pick-me-up shade when I don’t get enough sleep, which is very often lately. It brightens up my complexion a notch as well. Despite all the running, carrying baby boy in such humid and hot weather, it stays put. This one is truly an industrial strength blush lol. Priced at USD 30, it’s not exactly cheap, but since you only need a few dab, this will definitely last ages. NARS cosmetics is not available in Indonesia as of now, only in online shops. It’s usually priced around IDR 400.000-450.000, depending on the seller.

NARS Taos on me

NARS Taos on me

Now on the packaging, I totally loathe it. The rubber packaging is yucky because it’s frickin melting in our tropical weather. It becomes so sticky and leper-like I decided to toss it away and invest in Z-palette. When NARS Cosmetics came to Malaysia a while ago, they said the rubber packaging has been revamped to adapt to our crazy hot weather. I have none of the new packaging, but I’ve got responses that the new packaging is better. Quite a relief now eh? Go get one yourself now! If you think Taos is not for you, check out NARS’ other shades, it has a pretty large selection so you’re definitely can find one that suits your need.

I decided to continue my Oh-My-Blush! installment featuring one blush at a time. Now I can’t promise how regular this installment will be as I’ve already cut down gazillion of blushes in my collection so I will try to make it a weekly thing 😉 The blushes that I have right now are my favorites so don’t judge me if I sang praise to the heaven for these blushes lol. I’m biased that way.

Benefit Bella Bamba

So to kick it off I’m gonna present you with Benefit Bella Bamba! Shake that booties to samba rhythm! Oh I just fail miserably trying to make things rhyme. Bella Bamba belongs to Benefit’s Box ‘O’ Powder range. I used to have Dandelion and Georgia but those two were too sheer for my liking, so I ditched them. Oops sorry, I swapped them away :P. I can faintly remember I had a hard time to decide whether I should take this baby home or Coralista. I was attracted more towards this blush just because the packaging was too gorgeous to pass, gawd I’m a sucker.

According to Benefit, this is a 3D brightening face powder. Look at the box, it even says 3D pink. Honestly I have no idea what 3D pink means *baffles*. To me, Bella Bamba is strawberry pink with gold shimmer. Benefit suggests to apply this on the cheeks and *lo and behold* dot at the hairline. Dot at hairline? Have you ever seen people putting PINK on their hairline. No, thanks, I’ll just stick to the traditional way of applying blushes.

Left: Swatch, Right: Blended

How Benefit Bella Bamba looks on me

Mind you, unlike other Benefit Box ‘O’ Powder mentioned above, Bella Bamba is fairly pigmented. It’s not as pigmented as NARS blushes but a light hand is still needed if you don’t want to overdo your blush. So please be careful. I usually use stippling brush for application as it’s easier for me to control the amount of blush placed on my cheeks.

Benefit Bella Bamba after 10 hours (please excuse the shiny face, I had to use flash)

On me, Bella Bamba sticks like a leech. It stays on whole day with minimal fading. My skin is on the drier spectrum so blushes usually stay put throughout the day. I still can’t vouch for oily-skinned ladies. Maybe I should ask my sister to put this on and see how it fares (Dang how come I never thought about this??). I shall update this post once the experiment’s done ;). Priced at USD 28 it’s not exactly cheap but considering a little goes a long way I can justify the price hehe. I won’t repurchase as this blush is gonna last me a lifetime, or maybe two.

Where can you get this? I’m not sure whether Benefit Cosmetics is available in major cities in Indonesia, please let me know if any of you ever encountered one. Even if there isn’t any at the moment, Sephora’s coming to Jakarta pretty soon I heard so it will be available at Sephora. You can also find this at IndoMakeup, where I got mine. I’m not affiliated to IndoMakeup but I found their service to be excellent.

Ah I’ve been blabbering too much. To conclude, Bella Bamba is a pretty strawberry pink with gold shimmer which looks awesome on fair to medium skintone. It lasts all day long so one box could definitely last me ages.